08.
Conceptualism must delve into this kind of molecular substrate for poetry, taking a cue, perhaps, from a poem like “Fact” by Craig Dworkin (who lists, exhaustively, all the chemicals in the very page of inked paper used to document the list itself — so that, in fact, the poem “Fact” must vary with each instantiation, since the constituents in the brands of inked paper change from publisher to publisher).8 I might note that, despite the myopia of critics who feel obliged to dismiss the merits of such outlandish literature, the act of addressing this atomic degree of expression nevertheless constitutes one of the outlying horizons for the future of poetry. I believe that the acuity of our “vision” in poetry depends, in part, upon our ability to “zoom” across a multitude of unexplored dimensions, focusing upon each of them before ever reaching the finality of a full stop.